by Sant, Sharon
She glances up and down the lane again before she speaks. ‘Are you real, though?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t even know myself, if I’m honest. This dying business doesn’t seem to come with a manual.’
Her eyes widen. ‘So you know you’re dead? And it definitely is you?’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ I say. How can I even know what I am anymore? Sometimes I wonder myself if I’m actually still alive and just going loopy.
She reaches a shaking hand out to me and moves it slowly through my chest then she steps back and catches her breath, staring at me, her blue eyes round with something that doesn’t look like fear now.
‘Have you seen dead people before?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘Not like this.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Sometimes I see, like, the leftovers of people. I know there’s someone there but it’s more of a feeling, a space in reality that they’re filling. They never talk to me. But you look real; you’re just standing there in front of me.’
I think about this for a moment. ‘Are you a medium?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
I frown. ‘So you can’t tell me what’s happening to me?’
She shakes her head again in disbelief. ‘How would I know that?’
‘I just wondered… as you can see me and hear me and nobody else can.’
‘Are you sad about it?’ she asks.
‘Not that so much… I’m confused. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m not sure if there’s something you have to do to go where all the other dead people are.’ I feel a bit stupid now but I say it anyway. ‘I was hoping you would be able to tell me. I thought you might be a medium.’
She doesn’t laugh at me, like I thought she would. ‘Sorry, but I’m not. There’s a woman in the village who is.’
‘Raven?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know about her. I went to see her first, just after I died, but she can’t see me or hear me. I think she’s a fake.’
‘I thought about going to her to talk to my mum.’
She takes me by surprise for a moment. ‘Oh, I forgot your mum was dead.’
She shrugs. ‘It was last year. I’m used to it now.’
I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
‘Do you see other dead people?’ she asks. ‘Your dad is dead, isn’t he? Now that you’re dead have you seen him?’
She remembers that my dad is dead, even though I forgot about her mum. ‘I haven’t seen any other dead people at all. There’s just me,’ I tell her.
‘But there’s loads of dead people, thousands, millions. How come?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, looking down at her boots. They’re still muddy from last night and the soles are peeling away from the fronts. I look up again. ‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know what to think.’ She gives me a small smile. It makes her face look completely different, like a light goes on inside her.
‘So, can I talk to you now without you freaking out?’
‘I thought you were going to get off my case if I spoke to you this once.’
‘I know, but can I talk to you again? There are loads of things I want to ask you.’
‘You were pretty horrible in the hall,’ she says, her face serious again.
‘Sorry, I was just fed up. I didn’t mean to make you pass out like that.’
Her face twists more into an accusing frown. ‘You were pretty horrible to me when you were alive too.’
‘Yeah,’ I step from foot to foot awkwardly, ‘but everyone is.’ Straightaway, I wish I hadn’t said it. Her frown deepens. ‘I know that doesn’t make it alright,’ I add quickly. She considers for a moment and the darkness in her face clears.
‘Nobody else can see you only me?’
I nod.
She looks at me thoughtfully. ‘I suppose that must be boring.’
‘If I wasn’t already dead I’d die of boredom.’
She gives me another small smile.
‘What do you think?’
‘You can’t come to school with me,’ she warns.
‘But that means I can come and talk to you again?’
‘Why do you want to talk to me? I’m Bethany Willis.’ Her voice sounds harder now. She’s right, of course. I can just imagine what Matt would say. But right now, Bethany Willis is all I’ve got.
I shrug. ‘Who else am I gonna talk to?’
She thinks about this for a moment, like she might argue, then nods. ‘Not at school though, and definitely not at home. I’ll meet you later.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll think of somewhere.’
‘But I won’t know where to wait. How about the swings?’
She pauses for a moment. ‘No, people will be hanging around there and they might see me. I don’t want to give them any more reasons to hate me.’
I think about what she’s said. I suppose apparently talking to herself on the swings might do just that. ‘The churchyard?’
She nods. ‘Wait for me around here after school. When I can get away, I’ll meet you outside my house.’
‘You want me to sit outside your house?’
‘How else am I going to let you know I’m ready?’
‘Can’t I come to school with you for a bit?’
‘No.’
‘I won’t talk to you or anything.’
‘What’s the point then?’
‘I’ve got nothing else to do.’
She chews her lip. ‘You can’t talk to me, no matter what.’
‘I won’t, I promise. You won’t even know I’m there.’
‘Ok.’ She starts to walk again and I trot at her side.
‘What are you doing?’ she says from the corner of her mouth.
‘We’re both going to the same place.’
‘Yeah, but you can’t walk with me. What if someone sees?’
‘They’ll just see you walking to school.’
She throws me a sideways glance. ‘Don’t talk to me then.’
I pull my finger across my lips in a zipping motion. That smile lights her face again, just for a moment, then she looks straight ahead and carries on walking.
Three: Bethany
Bethany is lit by her torch, her face in weird upside-down shadow. Her jeans are a bit too short and her coat doesn’t really look thick enough for the frost that’s glistening over the grass of the churchyard. But I imagine the huge scarf that’s wrapped around her neck and the bobble hat pulled tight over her head is helping. We’re sitting on an old blanket that she brought to keep the damp ground from chilling her. I tried my hardest to keep out of her way but she still saw me a couple of times today at school. The first time was in the corridor. She was going to the IT block. Matt shoved past her as he headed to the sports hall and nearly knocked her over. I ran over as she pushed herself back up from the wall and told her he was a dickhead but she totally blanked me. The second time she had just been to the canteen for lunch. I watched her through the glass canteen doors as she sat by herself to eat her sandwiches. When she came out, she shot me a quick look and smiled a bit before she rushed off to Maths. Oh, yeah… the Cottle charm still works, even after death.
‘So, what do you think?’ I say. ‘Will you do it?’
She blows into her hands and rubs them together before answering slowly. ‘I don’t think it’s a very good idea.’
The church clock chimes. Distracted, we count together in silence as it echoes across the graveyard. It stops at seven.
‘Why not?’
‘Imagine it from her point of view. Some random girl rocks up at her door and says she can see you and talk to you. She’d totally freak.’
‘I thought about that. You could tell her something that only me and her would know? She’d believe you then.’
‘If someone had come to me like that when my mum died, I don’t think anything would have persuaded me. I’d have either bee
n scared or really angry with them.’
‘Would you? But you said you could see dead people before…’
‘Yeah, but it didn’t feel like they were actual people and they certainly weren’t having chats with me in churchyards.’
‘Can’t you at least try? I just want her to stop crying about me.’
‘David, the only thing that is going to stop her crying about you is time. And even then, deep in her heart, she’ll always be sad. I miss my mum every day. Your dad is dead; you should know what that’s like.’
‘I do,’ I say, but when I look at her, I’m not even sure that what we feel is the same.
She looks across at the grassy slopes beyond the old wall, shrouded in velvet blackness, and doesn’t answer. I wonder whether she’s wishing her mum was sitting here instead of me.
‘But if you were dead instead of your mum, and you were like me, wouldn’t you want her to know that you’re ok?’ I insist.
She looks at me now, her shadowed face wearing a frown. ‘But you’re not ok.’
‘Yeah, I know… what I mean is I’m not sad or anything.’
‘But you are sad.’
I sigh. ‘I can’t explain what I mean.’
‘You want her to stop worrying about you, to think that you’re ok and that you’re not sad? Nothing I say would change the way she feels, because she is going to worry that it was somehow her fault, and she knows you’re about as not-ok as it gets because you’re dead, and if I tell her that you’re wandering the village like some tragic gothic spirit she’s probably going to figure out you’re not happy either.’
‘I’m not tragic.’
‘Maybe you don’t feel like it. But that’s how it looks from here.’
‘You should know all about tragic,’ I snap.
I look away from her hurt expression. I wish I hadn’t said that now.
She doesn’t reply for a while and I don’t know how to take it back.
‘I’d better go home,’ she says eventually, starting to get up.
‘It’s only seven.’
‘Yeah, but Dad will be missing me soon.’
‘Where did you tell him you were going?’ I jump to my feet and she rolls up the blanket.
‘I didn’t.’
‘Doesn’t he freak out if he doesn’t know where you’ve gone?’
‘Not especially. But he’ll want some tea.’
‘You have to make his tea?’
She turns to me and shrugs. ‘Who else is going to do it?’
I don’t know what to say to that. My mum wouldn’t even let me boil the kettle. ‘Did your mum always do it before?’
‘Yeah, she looked after us really well.’
I think about what she’s just said. I can never remember a time when she didn’t look scruffy and weird. It’s not like I really noticed her that much, but she was always there, one of those kids on the outside looking in. I try to recall what I know about her. I can’t remember ever seeing her with a group of mates, though I think she talks to some girls occasionally. For a while, I didn’t even know her name until one of the teachers told us that Bethany Willis’s mum died falling down the stairs. She was off school for a couple of weeks and then when she came back, Ingrid pointed out who she was. People were nice to her for a while, when she first came back to school after it happened, but things soon got back to normal. She’s sort of like a shadow at school, invisible, nobody really notices her at all.
‘Maybe you want to show me your mum’s grave, now that we’re here?’ I ask. It’s been so long since I had someone to talk to that I don’t want her to go just yet.
‘It’s ok,’ she says, ‘I come all the time.’
‘But I’ve never seen it. You could show me and maybe I could visit at night for you.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘I haven’t got anything else to do.’
She shakes her head. ‘I’ll come back when it’s light and bring flowers.’
‘You want to see where my dad is buried, then?’
‘Not now.’
‘Or me,’ I say, ‘you haven’t seen where I am yet.’
She looks pretty uncomfortable with this. ‘I’ve already seen where you’re buried. I’d really better get back before Dad misses me,’ she says.
‘Ok.’ I can see that she’s not going to budge. And maybe I should just let her go, if she gets in trouble being out with me then she might not come and meet me again. ‘You want me to walk back with you?’ I ask, suddenly feeling stupid. It’s not like I’m going to beat anyone up if they attack her.
‘I suppose that would be ok.’ She stuffs the blanket in her rucksack.
We start to walk back across the churchyard, the torch weaving a tube of light over the ground. I can hear her boots as a muffled crunch on the icy grass. She climbs over the gate and I walk through it. She looks back and throws me a sad smile.
‘Why do you think you’re still here?’ she asks me as we walk down to the road. There are a few streetlights now and she clicks the torch off, stowing it in her bag.
‘I don’t know. Maybe everyone dies like this… a bit at a time?’
‘A bit at a time? Do you feel like you’re still dying, then?’
‘I dunno. I just feel like…’ I close my eyes for a moment trying to frame my words. ‘Like things are slipping away from me, like I’m disappearing gradually from view.’
‘Maybe you only feel like that because people can’t see you.’
‘You see me.’
‘I don’t really count, though, do I?’
I want to argue with what she’s just said, but I can’t. She’s right. But maybe I was never any better. ‘I can’t even leave the tiniest mark on the world though.’ I stamp my foot on the ground to show her. No mark on the ice, no sound from my trainer. She looks at me like Miss Jacobs looked at her that day in the nurse station. The first time anyone has ever given me that look since I died. ‘Come to think of it,’ I add, ‘I didn’t even do that when I was alive.’
She smiles. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. What about your mum and step dad? They miss you.’
‘Roger hates me.’
‘Oh. Are you sure about that?’
‘What does that even mean? Of course I’m sure. Did your dad move someone else in after your mum died?’
‘No –’
‘Then you don’t know what it’s like.’
‘Your dad’s been dead a while, though.’
‘She had other boyfriends before Roger. When he hadn’t been dead a while.’ I look down at my feet as I walk. ‘It won’t be long before she replaces me too, just like that.’
Bethany goes quiet. ‘But maybe she’s the sort of person who gets lonely,’ she says finally.
I look up. ‘She had me. And even if she was lonely, she didn’t need to marry Roger.’
‘Maybe she loves him.’
‘He’s nothing like my dad. My dad was cool.’
‘He doesn’t have to be the same for her to like him. Maybe she changed.’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that she’s way too good for him.’
‘Maybe that’s why you’re still here. Perhaps you need to be ok with Roger before you can move on? Like unfinished business or something.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so. He hated me, I hated him. I don’t see what difference it makes to anything.’
‘But maybe it matters to you, even if you don’t realise it.’
‘I couldn’t care less about him.’
She thinks for a moment. ‘If everyone dies like this, how come you’re not with loads of other people who are dying along with you?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe we all have our own little dimension, so we can do it in private or something.’
‘That sounds a bit weird. A bit like torture, if anything.’
‘Perhaps it’s a test.’
‘But not everyone passes tests.’ She hitches her rucksack up. ‘If that were true, what would happen to the peop
le who failed?’
‘I have no idea. Maybe I’ve already failed it.’ The notion makes me feel light-headed suddenly. ‘What if I’ve already failed and I have to hang around like this forever?’
‘Forever is a long time,’ she says.
‘I know.’
‘Try not to think about it like that,’ she says. ‘We’ll figure it out.’
‘I don’t know how,’ I say. ‘Who can we ask?’
‘Maybe someone else will be able to see you, not just me?’ she says. ‘I can’t believe there would only be me in the whole world. And maybe that someone will know what’s going on. We just have to find them.’ She looks across at me. ‘Maybe we need Raven after all.’
‘That medium? I told you she can’t see me.’
‘But she might know what’s going on.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Who else then?’
‘I don’t know. It’s not like we have a lot of people to choose from in this place.’ I wave my hand at the lights of the houses beyond the lane.
‘Then we’ll have to look somewhere else.’
‘I can’t pop from place to place, you know, like on films, and I don’t know if I can sit in a car or on a bus without falling through the floor.’
‘So that rules out backpacking across the world.’
I laugh. I haven’t laughed in ages. ‘I suppose it does.’
‘I’ll find someone,’ she says, ‘and I’ll get them to come here to you.’
‘You’d do that for me?’ I stop and look at her now as if she’s brand new.
‘Why not?’ she says, stopping with me.
‘Well…’ I begin slowly, ‘I suppose I wasn’t very nice to you before.’
She shrugs. ‘Like you said, no one is very nice to me. I’m used to it.’
‘Doesn’t it bother you? Surely it makes you want to smash their faces in.’
‘I thought about smacking yours in a few times,’ she says.
This makes me laugh too, for some reason. Like, really laugh.
‘It’s not funny,’ she says. She starts to walk again. I can’t see her face properly in the gloom but I think she might be pouting.